Death in North
Carolina’s Piedmont:Tales of Murder, Suicide and Causes Unknown.*

Price
$20 (plus $4.00 postage).Paperback, published 2006 by The History Press, Charleston, SC.

123-page book includes 10 true crime stories, some of which
achieved nation-wide fame. Among the fascinating stories is themurder of Captain James West, February 1863),
in the skirmish at the Bond School House; the murder of hired-hand Will Kelly
in the barnyard of the Dalton-Hunt house; the murder of Laura Foster for which
Tom Dula was hanged; the murder of “Poor” Ellen Smith
near the first Zinzendorf Hotel in Winston(-Salem), NC; the Lawson family
murders on Christmas day, 1929; and the mysterious death of Zachary Smith
Reynolds at Reynolda House in Winston-Salem in
1932.

This book is a must for collectors of local history.

*Winner of the Willie
Parker Peace Award presented by the North
Carolina Society of Historians, Inc.

Regional Folklore and Ghost Stories

Ghosts and Their Haunts:The Legends and Lore of the YadkinRiverValley.

This 158-page book is an assortment
of ghost stories, legends and folklore from all the counties that border the YadkinRiver:Ashe, Alleghany, Wilkes, Watauga, Surry
Stores, Yadkin, Forsyth, Davie, Davidson,
Iredell, Rowan, Cabarrus, Montgomery, and Mecklenburg.There
are many previously unpublished stories,including the legends surrounding the
famous “Hunt House.”

Great book
for old and young alike.

The War Between the States, a.k.a. the
Civil War

Note:All of my Civil War Books are thoroughly
researched, annotated, referenced and indexed.

This was the first in my
series about the War Between the States (1861-1865).It provides the reader with an overview of
life in YadkinCounty before, during, and after that
terrible conflict.Included in an
appendix is a listing of near 1,200 men who served in the CSA, CSN, Militia, or
Home Guard, with a short description of their service, and other valuable
information.One entire chapter focuses
on the events at the Bond School House, in which four were killed (2 militia
men, 2 draft-dodgers in the school).

The raid of General George Stoneman’s Federal cavalry in the spring of 1865 through
Jonesville, Hamptonville and Huntsville,
is chronicled.Civil War Trails markers
are scheduled to be erected at those places, and
several others in the county in the spring of 2008.Capt. Reuben Wilson, shown on the cover,
remained “unreconstructed “ the rest of his life.

*Winner of the Willie Parker Peace Award from the North Carolina Society
of Historians, Inc.

Thomas L. Clingman,
born in Huntsville, YadkinCounty, attended the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill where he was one of their
outstanding students.He moved to Asheville to practice law

and enter politics.He served in both houses of the U. S. Congress.When South Carolina
fired on Ft.Sumter, Clingman
resigned to serve the Confederacy.Clingman raised his owncompany, and was elected colone of the 25th Regiment.He was promoted to brigadier general, in
charge of the 8th, 31, 51st, and 61stNorth Carolina
regiments.Although the regiment never
received any fame, they were in the middle of some of the worst battles of the
war:Battery (Fort) Wagner on Morris
Island, Drewry’s Bluff below Richmond, Cold Harbor,
Petersburg, Globe Tavern,Fort Harrison,
Fort Fisher, and the last bettle in North
Carolina—Bentonville.

The
book focuses on the regiments of Clingman’s
brigade.Included are two of Clingman’s order books which show in detail the myriad of
problems a brigadier general faced ever day in the management of a brigade.

Despite being one of those hated“Yankees,”this was a man I cam to admire.He accomplished much with the most severe
handicaps—he lost his arm atSouthMountain in September of 1862, and the
fingers of his right hand were injured badly.Before the war, he was a doctor, but couldnot return to that profession after
his injuries.A staunch abolitionist,
Wild was enlisted to help train free blacks and former slaves for a regiment of
entirely black soldiers.He did so and
he astonished the nation when, with his leadership, his African Brigade
defeated the Confederate cavalry of General FitzHugh
Lee at Wilson’s Wharf on the James River in Virginia.

Wild seemed to have a talent for getting in sticky
situations.After a raid into the
northeastern counties of coastal North
Carolina, he was criticized for taking three women
hostage.For that reason, and a
combination of infractions of the rules and disobedienceto his superior officers,Wild was court martialed
several times.He could have been facing
prison had not General Benjamin F. Butler intervened on his behalf.

After the war, Wild joined the Freedmen’s Bureau in Georgia.There, too, he got into trouble when he used
excessive force against members of the Chenault
family in Wilkes County, Georgia, in an attempt to learn the
location of the missing Confederate gold.General U. S.
Grant was informed and he telegraphed orders that Wild
was to be removed immediately.

Edward A. Wild is one of those unforgettable characters who
has been overlooked by historians.

George Washington Alexander
served in the U. S. Navy as an officer under Commodoer
Perry in the history-making voyage to Japan in the 1850.When he returned, and war broke out,
Alexander resigned.He joined Richard
Thomas (“Zarvona’) and several men in a scheme to
capture ships in the Chesapeake Bay for the Confederacy,After successful captures, the men
were recognized, captured, and put in Ft.McHenry.Alexander stayed as long as he could stand
being confined, then escaped—the first recorded escape of a Confederate
prisoner from a Federal prison.

He returned to Richmond and joined the
provost marshal’s office.When a new
prison was opened, he was appointed commandant of Castle Thunder.This prison held Confederate deserters,
spies, runaway slaves, women, and a variety of criminals.Sometimes he instituted harsh measures of
discipline, but Castle Thunder was the cleanest prison the nation.This was probably due to his training in the
Navy where ships are kept spotless.

Alexander had other
talents.While running the prison, he
wrote a play, Virginia Cavalier, which
was performed in Richmond.To the delight of the audience, during each
performance, Alexander, dressed in his black provost marshal’s uniform and
black hat,rode
his big black horse across the stage,followed by his huge black dog, Hero.His outfit was made even more severe by his black beard.

After the war, Alexander was
on the 10-Most-Wanted list, and he fled to Canada.He returned several years later when the
amnesty laws were enacted during Grant’s presidency.

Of interest to Civil War
buffs, a partial listing of prisoners housed in Castle Thunder is
included.

Tales
from the North and the South:Twenty-four Remarkable People and Events of the Civil War.

Price.$35.00 (plus $4
postage).

Shown on the cover is a statue that was erected at Fredericksburg, VA
to honor the heroic efforts of Sgt. Richard Kirkland, who risked his own life
to take water to injured Union soldiers who lay on the battlefield.This is one of the many stories of unexpected
gallantry and heroism exhibited by ordinary men and women, soldiers and
civilians, during the Civil War.

A chapter is devoted to Brigadier General Stand Watie, a Cherokee Indian who fought bravely for the
Confederacy.Miss Elizabeth Van Lew, a Richmondsocialiate, was also a
spy for the Union.Union Colonel Thomas Rose was the mastermind
behind the tunnel dung under Libby Prison that allowed 109 Federal officers to
escape.General John Turchin and wife Nadine traveled together during the
war.She tended the sick and even took
command of his army when her husband was ill.They had migrated from Russia,
learned English and attended college her.

Former slave, Mrs. Susie Baker King Taylor, taught blacks to
read, and later was involved in the Women’s Suffrage movement.Dr. Mary Walker, the first woman doctor in
the Union army, was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor (and had it
recalled).

These are just a few of the stories in this book.It is an interesting and readable book,
suitable for people of all ages.

This highly acclaimed book examines both Confederate and Federal
prisons, a total of 27. Conditions in all were horrible, disease rampant, and
the food bad to non-existent.Each
chapter features a prison, gives its location, capacity, and description of the
facility.Included are true stories of
daring escapes and failed attempts.Some
plans were shear genius.

Only about 12 prisoners escaped from the Federal prison on
Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie .One of those who
did was Lt. Colonel John R. Winston from North
Carolina.He
and his companions made their way across the ice to safety in Canada.They then took a ship to Bermuda, and a
blockade runner to Wilmington,
then made it home to rejoin their units, a very long journey.

Some of the prisons are famous (Andersonville, Libby, Castle
Thunder), while others are scarcely known (Danville, VA; Camp Davidson at
Savannah, GA; Rock Island, IL; and Alton Military Prison, Alton, IL, Gratiot
Street Prison, St. Louis, MO).

The escape of Confederate cavalry officer, John Hunt Morgan,
and a few of his men, from the Ohio State Penintentiary
is one of the more interesting stories.

The ability of men to survive in the most horrible
conditions, much less escape, is almost unbelievable , as can be seen from some
of the stories in this book.